Japan and the Jury

The jury system is back in Japan, and observers around the world will be watching to see how it plays out.

On May 20, Japan's courts transitioned to a system of "lay judges" for criminal trials - a group of six randomly chosen voters who will assist a three-judge panel on determining facts and handing down sentences. This is the first time Japanese citizens will sit on juries since 1943, and the country has been preparing with hundreds of mock trials and even performances of the play "12 Angry Men."

Reformers hope that the new openness of trials will improve transparency and fairness in Japan's courts and law enforcement agencies. Japanese citizens tend to defer to authority more than other cultures, and the country has a 99.8% conviction rate and police are expected to get a confession in every case (I've seen reports of a 95% confession rate). There are others, however, who expect that the new system won't change things at all.

"This is not only a big change for Japan, but something that can have important consequences for the rest of Asia, where juries are not common," American attorney Robert Precht told Stars and Stripes this week. Precht assisted Japan with the transition, speaking to groups across the country.

"The biggest plus is that trials will be much shorter and based on actual live testimony, with witnesses brought into court instead of the current system of relying on the introduction of paper files. With actual live testimony, the process will certainly be more visible to the people and more transparent — and fairer — to the defendants, who will be able to face and cross-examine their accusers."

But another American attorney, Michael Griffith, disagrees.

... Critics of the new system say Japan’s culture, in which the average person is submissive to authority figures, will make it tough for the lay people to disagree with the professional judges on the panel.

"The kiss of death is to have three judges on the panel," said Griffith, an international criminal defense lawyer who has been involved in several high-profile cases involving U.S. servicemembers on Okinawa.

"I don’t think it’s a good idea. Japan does not have a culture where people feel free to express themselves openly. They kowtow to authority. Do you really think the lay people on a Japanese jury will argue with the judges on the panel? Believe me, you’ll never get a situation like you see in the movie ‘12 Angry Men.’"

Japanese citizens shared some of the same concerns, wondering whether the three-judge panel would treat lay judges as peers in the trial setting. Others are nervous about being called to jury duty - a ritual that is second nature to us in the U.S. but very foreign in Japan. About 20 percent of citizens said in a recent poll that they were willing to serve as lay jurors. Another 40 percent said they do it if they had to.

Momoko Uehara, 33, of Naha was among 30 people who participated in a forum hosted by the Naha District Court in late April. She sat patiently as the presiding judge explained the new system in which citizens picked by lottery would sit alongside judges in major felony cases.

But at the end she was not convinced she was ready to be a lay judge.

"What if I am chosen? The idea that my decision could directly affect the fate of a person makes me very nervous," she said. "The thought will probably haunt me for the rest of my life."